Egypt’s authoritarian government, they argue, cares less about writhing hips than it does about anything that could challenge its dominance.

“The brand of morality that they’re interested in is about people following the line,” said Wael Eskandar, an independent Egyptian journalist. “It’s an attempt to control people’s thoughts and their fears and their ideas of what is allowed.”

While Egypt is a religious Muslim country it does not have the severe social laws of its Gulf neighbours like Saudi Arabia. Women walk the streets of the large cities with their heads uncovered, alcohol is easily available and the government once nationalised the Stella beer company. The “golden age” of 1950s Egyptian cinema churned out films full of passionate love scenes and raunchy Carry On humour.

And so the recent focus on morality is a new direction for President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s government, which has devoted more of its time to crushing potential political challengers whether they be liberals or Islamists. No real opposition is expected to be allowed in next year’s presidential elections.

The surge in morality policing began in September, when fans of the Lebanese band Mashrou’ Leila raised the rainbow flag at a concert in Cairo. Within weeks dozens of LGBT people had been arrested and a new race was on among parliamentarians to clamp down.

"The rainbow party provoked me. I went crazy, how dare they do this? This is not the respectable Egypt," Shadia Thabet, an MP loyal to the government, told The Telegraph. She is working on a law that would allow police to arrest anyone who promotes gay relationships on social media. Another bill that would criminalise gay sex is also being looked at.

Shyma was arrested soon after, followed by what may be the most baffling arrest of the entire crackdown: a foul-mouthed secular blogger named Islam al-Refaei. Known to his 75,000 Twitter followers as 5orm, the Arabic word for “hole”, he devoted more of his time to sarcastic quips and pictures of scantily-clad women than to Egyptian politics.

On November 16 he was lured to a Cairo cafe by police posing as potential clients for his website design business and arrested, according to the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information.

"The stifling of social freedoms is intended to weaken civil society," said Amin Al-Mahdi, a political analyst. He suggested it may also be a way for Mr Sisi’s government to align itself with Salafists and conservative Muslims. “It sends them a message that the regime fights for morality when the actual propose is control and power obsession.”

Mr Sisi is himself a devout Muslim but he is also a scourge of Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and has more in common with secular military strongmen than with overtly religious leaders.

Liberal critics suggest the public furore in state-run media over Shyma’s lingerie may also be a way of diverting public attention from the sagging economy and contentious negotiations between Egypt and Ethiopia over each country’s share of the Nile’s water.

Mr Eskandar said: “They do this stuff with morality as an excuse to distract people from what is happening or what will happen next.”